Re: quality of playing decreases with age?

[Lev Polinsky <polinsky@husc.harvard.edu>]

On Sat, 2 Dec 1995, Michael D. Mullins wrote:
> Date: Sat, 2 Dec 1995 14:17:52 -0500
> From: "Michael D. Mullins" <mullins>
> To: OwtUvFuel@aol.com, mullins@ecn.purdue.edu
> Subject: Re: My $.02 on the live disks...
> 
>    Anyways, your comments on Pete's guitar playing- while I disagree- bring up
> a very interresting point, which I've thought about many times.  It seems to me,
> listening to old live stuff, that Pete's guitar-playing prowess actually seemed
> to peak around the late 60's, and then nose-dived as the Tommy tour went on 
> (maybe it was just a matter of him caring less at that point).  For example, the
> Monterey rendition of "My Generation" is still my favorite, partially because 
> Pete's solos are better here than on any other version I've hard- campare the 
> short, snappy, piercing solos he does at Monterey to the almost indifferent-
> sounding ones he does on, say, the otherwise-excellent '71 version on the 
> "30YOMB&B" video.  And Pete's soloing on the Fillmore '68 tape, whether pot
> influenced or not, are astounding, especially on "Relax" (no where else have I
> heard Pete do Hendrix-style tremolo dive-bombs).  I think you can even hear a 
> noticable difference between '69 and '70 Tommy-era soloing.  I think, for     
> example, that the soloing on the '69 version of "Young Man Blues" from "The
> Kids Are Alright" is actually better than that on the same at "Leeds" (and I've
> never heard it, but isn't that supposedly-singular version version on "Pure Rock
> Theatre" from '69?).  And I think Pete's soloing may well have gotten better in
> the '79-'82 era than it had been all through the '70's, but for my money, he 
> never again got as good as the '67-'69 period.  
>    Interestingly, I have a friend who's an excellent guitar player, and has been
> playing since high school, who said the same thing about his own playing.  We 
> were listening to an old tape of him playing from years ago, and he said "Man, I
> wish I could still play solos like that."  He felt, (probably correctly, to my
> ears...) that he had gotten complacent and sort of "let his soloing go" over the
> years.  I can't help but thing of this when I listen to Pete's soloing.  Oh     
> well, food for thought.      
> 
I've found this true for almost all rock instrumentalists, both 
creatively and in terms of musical ability--solo quality, e.g.  The most 
blatant example of this is Keith Richard[s] who came up with his best 
riff in 1964, and has been, as far as I can tell, recycling it since.  
The main exception I have seen to this rule of rockers peaking early is 
John Entwistle, whose bass playing steadily improved from the sixties 
until the end of the Who's career, and has probably gotten better since.